


Every Promise Under Heaven

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s05e19 Vegas, vegas!Rodney
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he finally arrives, all Rodney can think about is still-art.  Horribly bleak still-art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Promise Under Heaven

When he finally arrives, all Rodney can think about is still-art. Horribly bleak still-art. He stays with his palm slowly scalding against the roof of the car, aviators perched awkwardly against his face. Ostensibly, he's here to oversee the clean up crew eddying around him. Not assist. 

There are a few confused glances since assistance is expected, by now. But all Rodney can do is stare.

Scene: chunks of desiccated metal still faintly smoking, laid out with Fibonacci's subtle grace. Gaping black streaks halo the destroyed trailer, pressed into the earth like asphalt that glitters under Nevada's unforgiving sun. There are almost hints of oil-slick rainbows, perverted curls of refraction in the shimmering moments where the sun touches down. Tiny fragments of beauty promising something beyond the harsh red landscape and the charred remains.

In the foreground lies a man on his back. His boots are scuffed and point to the heavens, jacket bulging in the weak morning breeze. The face is turned away, protected by hair that gleams darker than the destruction around him, but even without seeing the expression there is something torn and broken about this man. Something small, for all he appears lanky and long even now. Already the desert reaches for him, greedy for the life that's long ebbed away.

His shirt is still white, bone and virtue, and the perfectly stiff, starched collar is a blinding beacon of incongruity.

"He's dead, sir."

Rodney quells the instinct to snap. Twenty years and more lessons than he likes to admit but still the instinct remains. "Was he fed on?"

"No, sir. Bullet to the shoulder."

The aviators make a good defense -

(" _Put those away, McKay, you don't fly my ships except under duress."_

 _"That's because you're a possessive control freak who barely lets Major Lorne touch your - what was it you called them? Oh, yes, your_ babies _\- hey give those back!"_

 _"Nope," the other Sheppard teases, eyes crinkling with bright smile lines as a second pair of aviators slides against the top button of his shirt, joining a pair already glittering under Atlantis' light, "gotta earn a pair of shades like these."_ ) 

and Rodney hides motionless behind them. He knows how a man with a bullet in his shoulder dies. The way air wheezes, asthmatic and whistling, through a deflated lung, lips turning blue no matter how much red fountains below.

When he finally approaches it's the stillness he notices. Noticed. The way Detective Sheppard had lost himself in still, perfect poses that were supposed to hide the screaming agony his eyes couldn't. Or maybe that's Rodney's burgeoning poetic license again, comparisons that no one else in the Detective's life could make. The studied desperation and defeat are gone now, relaxed into something truer. Natural.

If anything, Sheppard looks pleased.

Slowly, Rodney turns Sheppard's right hand palm up. Torn, dirty nails crest the rims of his fingers and dust has already filled the grooves of life and love in his empty palm.

His _clean_ palm.

There's no reason to be surprised.

Rodney eventually motions for the crew to take the body away.

 

* * * 

He's not sure when it stops being a tiny, annoying bit of potential. It feels like some sort of mental hangnail, trapped in the back of his mind and not nearly long enough for him to get a grip on, let alone tug free. Rodney hates hangnails. Pain is necessary to life, no one in Rodney's position lives this long without learning _that_ lesson, but he'd rather deal with the pain others create. Twinges in his knees or a tightness in his chest make him grumpy, but the dull, steady ache of a hangnail turns him into a tyrant. 

He doesn't even have the option of physically worrying at it, this time.

Or contacting the pretty lieutenant that doesn't mind trading weekly manicures for supplies plus certain magazines from home. Rodney's not sure why knitting magazines are treated with such illicit, guilty pleasure, but he doesn't argue. He loves manicures, the way chemicals burn his throat even as they eat through calluses to provide a lying veneer of softness. A voice that echoes, memory and water obscuring details, reminds him that soft hands are an easy sign of weakness and groomed nails indicate a fussiness others will want to exploit.

All true.

Ulterior motives don't dim his personal enjoyment. He's learned not to let them.

"You are having a thought, yes?"

"Nothing relevant." Rodney tucks his hands back under the table and tries to focus on Radek, watching him with the guarded expression he never loses even when they argue. "Are you finished pushing off your preposterous notion that we try and control these rifts through dimensions? You know as well as I that the matter transfers involved are unstable and that anything over twelve hours is incredibly dangerous."

"You are quoting your otherself. _Again._ "

"Any version of me is still smarter than you."

Radek flinches more for the lack of nastiness. "You have been very bitter since returning from Earth. The job was done well, Rodney. The signal did not reach any other Wraith."

"That just means the job was done."

There's no response for that. Radek shakes his head, hair escaping into its perpetual frizzy halo as he looks at the man who knows everything about him, and not just because his dossier is approaching several volumes. "Must I tell you it was necessary?"

It's too easy to stiffen, to give in to the anger that spurs deep in his wrists. "You might as well call me a fool, instead."

"Such a thing I have never done," Radek says gravely.

"Are we done?" Rodney has to work to quell the smile, but not too hard. "Or are you going to try to prove fairies and unicorns next?"

"Bah," is the grumpy answer and then Rodney is alone in the conference room.

He presses his hand against the conference table. Atlantis is just a city, just a dream they've forced into reality, but sometimes Rodney thinks she's more. That she's a _she_ underneath all the impersonal, asexual metal that drives her features, the programming that gives her fingers and thumbs. The table Rodney touches bears a sheen of slick, alien metal that is silken, almost water-soft, to the touch. He presses his palm flat and tells himself its his own heartbeat that he hears. There are acceptable reasons for all of the things he believes, truth underneath all the polite, romantic fiction.

"I know you're here," Rodney whispers to a room full of deadened, private air. "I know it."

In the back of his mind, something throbs dully.

The ache becomes a constant part of him, driving his thoughts and actions the way an aching shoulder will drive posture. He finds himself paying attention to the faceless soldiers that rotate through his team, requesting Major Lorne repeatedly. That isn't unusual enough to be commented upon, but Lorne's taken to watching him. And his face starts tightening in what could be surprise when Rodney starts soliciting opinions about more than just safety concerns.

"I really don't know anything about that, Doctor McKay," Lorne says, grey eyes wary underneath blank-faced American politeness.

_"Do you see this?" McKay demands, snapping. All three of his team members turn, but it's Sheppard who takes a step forward, leaning over McKay's shoulder the way no member of Rodney's military would dare. "Look at these equations, are you seeing what I am?"_

_Sheppard's expressive face furrows into confusion his shoulders don't echo. Neither does the hand that hovers near the small of McKay's back, nothing at all to do with his own precarious position. "We saw that in P3X, didn't we?"_

_"And there was another dimensional rift there!" McKay is nearly bouncing with excitement. The strength of his beaming smile dims when he catches Rodney's expression, though._

_Rodney still doesn't know what he looked like._

"Just look at it, will you?"

Lorne does, but his eyes don't even flicker. "Sorry, Doctor. I'm not a math major."

That's a lie but Rodney's too disgusted to bother calling him on it. Just rubs the back of his aching head and saves the day, once again.

By now it's almost boring.

"They don't understand." His bed is warm, the sheets pulled up to his chin the way his sister used to insist upon. Around him, the walls glow with spangled starlight. "I don't know how to make them understand."

That's an unusual position for Rodney to be in and he doesn't think about what it really means. Lessons and lessons and lessons and some things Rodney can yet lie to himself about.

"He's dead." The word comes out dull and hollowed. "I can't look for what isn't there."

He gave up making wishes in grade six, when men with ear wigs came to his school.

"You could tell me what it is, couldn't you?" He touches the wall where oil has started etching an image that fits seamlessly with his palm. "If you knew, you could tell me."

* * *

The planet doesn't look any different from the hundreds of others they've visited. Same trees, same white-brushed sky, same primitive people who welcome them with eyes permanently set to wary no matter how wide their arms might spread. Rodney looks at the defensive structures around the village, fortifications that would be useless against the Wraith but are clearly well maintained. Interesting.

It remains interesting until a tall, scarecrow man says the word, "Athos."

_"This is Teyla Emmagen, of Athos." The introductions are strangely formal despite the practiced way the words fall out. Sheppard is uncomfortable, watching Rodney's eyes for something. "Behind her, the tall guy is Ronon of Sateda. You never had a Lieutenant named Ford, did you?"_

_The dance of where time lines diverged is fascinating for many reasons. "No."_

_"Makes sense." No, it doesn't. "Like I said, Teyla and Ronon and McKay. All four of us are the flagship team."_

_The ranking military officer, a self-proclaimed genius with none of Rodney's years of painstaking remolding, and two aliens that wore their native garb. All of it tells Rodney not only that the CIA has no hand in Sheppard's version of the SGC, but that the xenophobia remains. Rodney's fought with Woolsey on asking for more local input -_ local color means local trust, _or so the saying goes. Sheppard's hand remains hanging down away from his waist, ostensibly in front of all three of his other team members, clustered beside and behind him._

_It's a subtle bit of body language, and only McKay is oblivious to it._

_"Hello," Rodney greets with a small bow. Sheppard's hand doesn't drop, but his shoulder relaxes; he guessed right. "I'm pleased to meet you."_

"You said Athos?" The hangnail, so long an ache that Rodney barely thinks about it anymore, is gone now, ripped away with the force of a band aid. He's not sure if it'll bleed yet. "Is there a woman named Teyla here?"

"I am Teyla."

The build is the same, the caramel colored hair and skin and the black tank-top that's filled out in ways Rodney barely even glances at are the same. The hard, violent look to her eyes is different.

"I'm pleased to meet you. My name is Rodney McKay... " The introductory speech falls out as easily as Colonel Sheppard's had, but it's only training that keeps Rodney from babbling. Teyla. Maybe, eventually, his Teyla. "We're here looking for trade and information. We fight the Wraith."

In Pegasus, blunt speech is most gracious.

"We fight many," Teyla replies enigmatically and Rodney suppresses a thrill because he knows that well-modulated voice. "We do not treat with strangers."

For one moment, Rodney feels a flash of something that is like Atlantis - her hum, her cool welcome like metal freezing on the tongue, skin suddenly triply warm - but isn't _his_ , and in his head hears a gravelly voice that only exists in other universes. His mouth opens: "I like creating mathematical equations that are so perfect they make other men weep, always being right, and drinking as much coffee - a stimulant drink - as I can humanly hoard." 

Training makes him inject a note of humor. Eagerness makes it sincere.

Pushing free from the crowd, Teyla tips her head back until her forehead fringe rises into a crest, shadowing her bird-like features. "I enjoy the destruction of my enemies and enemies are never strangers. Will you join me for morning tea, Doctor McKay? I promise you it is quite stimulating."

Her mouth remains small and hard but her eyes - Rodney can see her eyes and the way they crinkle at the corners, warming into a genuine smile as she gestures to a hut _outside_ the fortified village.

"I would be honored, Teyla of Athos," he says, and offers his hand palm up.

_"Our Rodney is very different from you." Teyla could've given his teachers lessons, but then, necessity always teaches best. "Do you know why?"_

_Across the room, Rodney argues with Woolsey over something he's been told not to do that he deems idiotic. "Grade six, probably. I took a... scholarship. I don't think he did."_

_The answer explains nothing but Rodney knows she'll be able to repeat it with perfect inflection. "I do not believe that is the only difference." Her sharp eyes glance down at Rodney's hand, flat against the wall. "The gene therapy was successful for you as well?"_

_Gene therapy?_

_"A mechanism our doctor created to allow those born without the ability to interact with Atlantis' mental component."_

_A perfectly useless statement, Rodney thinks with admiration. "That didn't work in our world. Does it work on everyone in your universe?"_

_"I was not one of the lucky few, no. Forgive me for being so blunt, Doctor, but I am surprised you have the gene. In all our interaction with these mirror worlds, I have never seen one where basic chemistry was affected."_

_"That does seem different from what your McKay explained, but given the infinite variety these universes represent it's not an unexpected scenario." Rodney's eyes dart over towards McKay, who hovers anxiously next to Sheppard while the other man settles into the hard, military bearing that never works on Woolsey. Rodney could tell him that, if he wanted to, but he doesn't. He doesn't want to do anything but watch the way they move together, the comfort that never wavers even when their arms brush, bodies pushed together as they both spot the same weakness and move seamlessly to press the point._

_He's aware that both Ronon and Teyla are watching him watch. That doesn't seem to bother him either, even though it should. These are strangers, aliens in the truest sense of the word, but it just_ doesn't _and he isn't interested in finding out why._

_A light touch on his wrist jerks him back to attention, looking up to a man with a face like a craggy rock, worn with too much weather. "You're not stupid," is all he says._

It's only now that Rodney understands.

So maybe he is stupid. Sometimes.

* * *

Nearly a year later, he bumps his shoulder against the same woman who bruised it that morning. The twinge circles in his gut in a way that has nothing to do with pain. "Teyla, do you know what a Runner is?"


End file.
